Whether you know him as the guy who Kurt Cobain learned all his tricks from, or simply don’t know him at all (the more likely of the two options), Greg Sage was one of the most significant and forward-thinking punk men of the 80s. Did I mention underrated? For the overall excellence of their entire catalogue and how influential they are, The Wipers enjoyed a decent cult-status at best – but while I’d like to say it’s a shame, it’s not like Sage cared to be credited, anyway.
Since one could easily write a Weekly Worship for any of their pre-reunion albums, I thought it best to go back to the beginning – when Sage’s mad ranting wasn’t quite in the picture yet, and The Wipers were mostly just a magnificent punk band. Even then, Is This Real? easily blows most punk albums of its day and age out of the water. Being the songwriting great he is, Sage is always able to maintain composure throughout the album – from simple, but ruthless tunes like “Return of the Rat” and “Tragedy”, to cynical explosives like “D-7” and “Potential Suicide”, there isn’t a minute of intensity spared on Is This Real? Though, his talent as a guitarist is undeniable, Sage is tasteful and reserves the showcasing of his skills to subtle nuances in the skeletons of his songs – the raving, yet technically proficient solos he takes are probably most evident, but it is not hard to notice the lack of power-chord worship in his riffing either (usually it is just plain weird), and how hard he tries to actually make his albums interesting, in terms of pacing and song structure. It is not hard to imagine that Sonic Youth took inspiration from tracks like “Windowshop for Love” and “Wait a Minute”; it’s also pretty amusing to think that the latter band are usually accredited for a style Sage had already taken to a while before them, but either way, it just shows what great influence this lost gem of a band had on music.
Though, most recordings you’ll find on the internet are of the album’s remaster – and thus provide a bit of an unreliable comparison, in this situation – it is still easy to see that Is This Real? is superior to most albums of its genre and time period, in production quality. For one, you can clearly make out Sage’s vocals over the music, and every instrument is crisp and clear in the mix. Especially considering they were always relatively low on the radar, and on a relatively unknown label, it is incredible that they got the album to sound like it did. Bands like Husker Du and Minutemen worked at a similar feat, but keep in mind that Is This Real? recorded in 1979, and released in 1980 – by the time these bands released albums, the Wipers were at it again, with Youth of America.
Ideally, one would say Is This Real? took punk, and then the Wipers went on to take the world, but sometimes things just don’t unfold the way one would expect. One needs no guide to the rest of this discography, as it pretty much explains itself – this band just got better and better, and what happened with sound is best discovered by one’s ear, rather than wasting precious time on this computerized scrawl. If it takes this author bashing his own write-up, then so be it, as everyone owes it to themselves to be exposed to more of the Wipers’ greatness.
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